


I Hope You Never Fear Those Mountains In The Distance

by Duck_Life



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Carl Loves His Mom and His Sister and His Michonne, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Sad and Happy, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 02:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8693452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Carl and the songs he's heard through the ages.





	

I.

“ _Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance_.” Lori’s swaying and shaking, singing into the wooden spoon like it’s a microphone. She’s got spaghetti sauce on her chin. “ _And if you get the chance to sit it out or dance_ …”

“Mom!” Carl’s laughing, bright eyes and embarrassed smile.

“Come on, baby, dance with me,” she says, dropping the spoon and grabbing his hands. “ _I hope you dance, I hope you dance_.” She whirls her son around the kitchen while he laughs and laughs. Music echoes out of the tinny stereo on the counter. The noodles boil; the sauce sputters and bubbles. Carl and Lori dance.

II.

“I made up a song,” he tells her proudly. Lori’s trying to comb through his hair with just her fingers. On the other side of the fire, Carol braids up Sophia’s to get it out of her face.

“Oh yeah?” Lori says, her mouth quirking up in a smile. “Let’s hear it.”

“ _If it’s dead, shoot it in the head_ ,” Carl warbles, bizarrely proud of his lyrics. “ _And if he gives you trouble, hit him with a shovel. If_ —”

“Okay, honey,” Lori says, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Carol looks mortified. “That’s… that’s very, ah, _unique_.”

“It’s so for we can remember,” he says, looking a little miffed that she doesn’t like it. “Like ‘red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black, friend of Jack.’”

“Mm-hmm,” Lori says, because she doesn’t know what else to say.

Carl sulks. “Andrea liked it.”

III.

They bury Lori in the late afternoon.

When it’s all done, Rick stands there like stone and Carl, beside him, holds his hat in his hands and tries not to think about what she must look like underneath all that dirt, beneath the shroud. All the blood. The hole in her head. His right hand twitches.

Maggie’s holding the baby and Beth, beside her, glances at Carl for a sign to start. He nods.

“This was one of Lori’s favorite songs,” she tells their broken little group gathered around the makeshift cross. It feels weird to have a funeral when so many are dead. One of those things that makes them feel like they’re people— or that they’re pretending they’re still people, anyway. “Carl asked me to sing it,” Beth says, and then she begins. “ _Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. And the dreams that you dreamed of, dreams really do come true.”_

IV.

Beth sings a lot, and Carl spends a lot of time with Beth. So he ends up hearing a lot of music. “ _Come in, she said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm_ ,” Beth sings liltingly, bouncing Judith in her arms. Carl glances up from the coloring page he’s half-heartedly filling in on the stairs.

“Don’t you know any normal songs?”

She laughs. “What do you mean by normal?”

“Like songs that people actually know.”

Beth smiles and boops Judith on the nose before rolling her eyes at Carl. “You don’t know Bob Dylan?”

“I don’t know _that_ Bob Dylan song,” he says. “Just like… there’s no more radio. You could at least sing some real songs.”

“Hmm,” she says, looking down at Judith. She’s quiet for a long moment, and then— “ _I like big butts and I cannot lie—”_

“Oh my God, no.”

“ _You other brothers can’t deny_ ,” she laughs, whirling Judy around. “ _When a girl walks in with a itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face—”_

“STOP.”

V.

Michonne steals his hat while they’re walking along the railroad tracks. “Look, I’m Carl,” she grins. “Howdy, howdy, howdy.”

“Give it back,” he says, swiping for his hat, but she’s too fast. She ducks out of his grasp and hops over the tracks, sprinting out of his reach. Rick watches the whole thing go down, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Give it back!”

Carl leaps for her but she slips away. Michonne makes finger guns and mimes shooting him, and then she tilts the hat up and blows away imaginary smoke from her imaginary pistol. “ _I shot the sheriff_ ,” she sings, and then glances at Rick. “ _But I didn’t shoot the deputy_.”

Carl grabs his hat back while she’s trying to remember the next line. “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

“ _I shot the sheriff_ ,” she continues as they continue along the tracks. “ _But I swear it was in self-defense_.”

VI.

Carl isn’t scared.

He doesn’t really get scared anymore. Worried, sure. Filled with dread. Angry. But not scared. When Negan swings his bat nonchalantly, and Carl feels the _whoosh_ of air where it comes close to his face, he doesn’t get scared.

“You killed my men,” Negan says, more a statement than an accusation. “Now you’re gonna have to do something for me.”

Carl isn’t scared. He isn’t scared when Negan makes him take off the bandage, exposing the ugly scar tissue where his eye used to be. He isn’t scared when Negan casually considers killing him and siccing his dead body on Dad and Michonne. He isn’t scared when Negan tells him that he wants Carl to sing him a song.

 _“You are my sunshine_ ,” he manages, his voice dry. “ _My only sunshine. You make me happy… when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you_.” Negan swings his bat and Carl isn’t scared. “ _Please don’t take… my sunshine… away_.”

The man with the bat sneers. “Your mom used to sing that to you? Where’s she now?” Carl isn’t scared. He doesn’t say anything. “She’s dead, right? Dead. Heh.”

Carl isn’t scared, but he cries anyway.

VII.

When he’s finally home again, Michonne won’t take her eyes off him. He’s covered in cuts and bruises and he’s lost his bandage, but he’s whole and alive and it’s enough. Carl seems shaken, like he’s waking up from a nightmare and realizing it all really happened.

“Are you okay sleeping down here?” she checks with him as night falls and Carl makes up the couch. “Because, you know, you can sleep in our room. It’s okay. You can take my spot.”

“I’m fine,” he says, his voice hoarse. Negan made him sing for a long time. “Just need to rest.”

“We’re right upstairs,” she says. “Let me know if you need anything. Please.”

“I will.”

Later that night, Michonne goes to check on Judith and finds Carl standing over her crib, holding his sister close to his chest and singing her to sleep. “ _I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean_.” His voice is cracking every other word but Judith doesn’t seem to mind. _“Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens. Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance. And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance…_

_“I hope you dance.”_

 

 


End file.
